Book Review

Well Played
by Jen DeLuca

This romance novel set at a Renaissance Faire is the sequel to Well Met and is equally fun and sweet. This one is told from the perspective of Stacey, who plays a tavern wench at the Faire but is longing for a change in her life. She feels stuck in her small town life. When she drunkenly texts Dex, the lead singer of a Duelling Kilts folk band and her faire fling, she finds herself in a text and email correspondence with a sweet, warm, funny man she assumes is Dex. But when the Duelling Kilts roll back in town for the Faire, Stacey discovers that the man she's been writing to and falling in love with isn't Dex, it's Daniel, Dex's cousin and the band's manager. Luckily, Stacey and Daniel are able to deal with and move on from the deception and fall more deeply and truly in love.
I found Well Played less deep than its predecessor, but very sweet and fun. I really loved how Stacey and Daniel got to know each other via text and email before connecting in person - it gave a bit of a slower burn to the relationship and put them on a firm footing to deal with the truth when it came out. It also gives their relationship a lot of warmth and comfort that I liked. I do think that the third act/crisis threw in some perhaps unnecessary drama, but it did allow for a final romantic gesture that nicely upended a couple of conventions.

Book Review

Switched-On Bach
by Roshanak Kheshti

This short book examines Wendy Carlos' seminal album through the lens of transformation, technology, and gender. The album Switched On Bach came out in 1968 and is a selection of Bach pieces performed on the analog Moog synthesizer. The creation of the album involved painstaking sound design and orchestration on a finicky piece of equipment. The album sold millions of copies, brought the synthesizer out of the esoteric and inaccessible avant-garde and into the mainstream, and popularized the instrument.
Kheshti takes a very philosophical and intellectual approach to discussing Switched On Bach, one which I found fascinating. She dwells a lot on the synthesizer's and recording studio's ability to transform and translate sound and music. She relates that to a few aspects of 1960s and 1970s history and society as well as to gendering and gender perceptions of the synthesizer, electronic music, and the avant-garde. It's pretty heady and brainy stuff, but also enjoyable and interesting throughout.